LINCOLN HIGHWAY 



3447 



LINCOLN HIGHWAY 



$500,000; a Federal building, county courthouse, 

 Carnegie Library, the Scottish Rite Masonic 

 Temple, Commercial Club Building, Y. M. 

 C. A. and Y. W. C. A. buildings. 



Industry. Lincoln is the trade and supply 

 center for a large surrounding territory. There 

 are more than one hundred wholesale houses, 

 and the city stands high among places of its 

 size in the distribution of fruit, live poultry, 

 groceries and farm implements. The largest in- 

 dustrial establishments include the large Bur- 

 lington shops (which employ 1,110 mechan- 

 ics) at Havelock, a suburb east of the city; 

 a creamery, said to be the largest in the world; 



grain elevators, a seed farm and manufactories 

 of paint, corsets, gasoline engines, irrigation 

 supplies, upholstered goods, mattresses, brooms 

 and dusters, overalls and shirts, saddles and 

 harness, sashes and doors. 



History. Settlers were first attracted to this 

 vicinity by the salt springs. The town of Lan- 

 caster was organized in 1862, when there were 

 but few inhabitants, and in 1867, with a popula- 

 tion of thirty, the place was chosen as the state 

 capital and the name changed in honor of 

 Abraham Lincoln. In 1913 the commission 

 form of government was adopted. Lincoln is 

 the home of William Jennings Bryan. 



HIGHWAY, a road for ve- 

 hicles, extending entirely across the northern 

 part of the United States, its eastern terminus 

 across the Hudson River from New York City, 

 in New Jersey, its western at San Francisco. 

 It is named in honor of Abraham Lincoln; its 

 object is to provide a practically perfect high- 

 way across the continent and to encourage good 

 road-building in all of the states of the Ameri- 

 can Union. 



It has for many years been the boast of 

 France that a person can walk along almost 

 any road from one end of the republic to the 

 other without wetting his feet. France has 

 been densely populated for many hundred 

 years; it is much smaller than the state of 

 Texas, and is only twice as large as the entire 

 state of Colorado. Road-building in a small 

 area presents few difficulties such as attend 

 like labor in a country so vast and so thinly 

 settled as is a considerable part of the United 

 States. 



Most of the Eastern states of the Union pos- 

 sess remarkably good roads; their populations 

 are dense, the people travel much, and money 

 appropriations have been freely made for high- 

 way improvement. The West is helpless, so far 

 as the building of hard-surfaced roads is con- 

 cerned. To reach the Pacific coast one must 

 pass through states where for miles one sees no 

 human habitation. The state of Nevada has a 



population of less than one person to the 

 square mile and an area more than half as large 

 as that of France ; it is manifestly impossible to 

 expect the inhabitants of such a section, no 

 matter what their desires may be, to bear the 

 extremely-heavy expense of constructing even 

 one hard-surfaced road through the state. 



In 1912 a group of men headed by Carl H. 

 Fisher of Indianapolis proposed that a national 

 road should be built across the country and 

 paid for by voluntary contributions and local 

 appropriations. It was believed that if the 

 good effects of one thoroughly-good highway 

 could be made apparent it would hasten the 

 day when America's two million miles of unim- 

 proved roads would cease to be more or less of 

 a disgrace to the various communities. 



An association was organized, with head- 

 quarters at Detroit, late in 1913. The shortest 

 and most practicable route across the continent 

 was selected, and the labor of securing funds 

 was begun in all localities along the line. The 

 response exceeded expectations. The President 

 of the United States in touring the country in 

 1912 gave the project a strong unofficial en- 

 dorsement when he said, "One reason I am in 

 favor of good roads is because they wipe out 

 sectionalism; they tend toward a national unity 

 of thought and sentiment." 



Personal contributions and local, state, 

 county and city appropriations assured the sue- 



